One of a handful of film
critics turned filmmakers and thus establishing the French Nouvelle
Vogue (New Wave) together with the likes of
Jean-Luc Godard,
Jean Renoir and Eric Rohmer. Truffaut was in many ways the logical heir
to André Bazin's humanistic tradition in film criticism and approach,
and it was perhaps he who most fully translated this theory to his own
films, often concerned with the depth and measures of interpersonal
relationships and the effects of upbringing and childhood. The latter
was definitely the basis for his breakthrough film, Les quatre cents coups (The Four Hundred Blows) in 1959, incidentally the same year
in which Jean-Luc
Godard made a Truffaut story into the landmark film A
Bout de souffle.
As Godard and Truffaut progressed, they contributed to the
self-fulfillment of Truffaut's article "Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma
Francais" (A Certain Tendency in French Cinema) in Bazin's journalCahiers du Cinéma in which
he put forward the "auteur theory", arguing for more personal and
influential approach from directors.

"Elliptical, full of wit and radiance, this is the
best movie ever made about what most of us think of as the Scott
Fitzgerald period (though the film begins much earlier); Truffaut
doesn't linger—nothing is held too long, nothing is overstated, or even
stated. He explores the medium and plays with it." - Pauline Kael